Manager Gareth Ainsworth admitted it was the same old story for Gillingham in their New Year’s Day defeat at Swindon.
The Gills had more shots, more efforts on target, more touches inside the opposition box, forced the Swindon keeper into making several top saves and also hit the woodwork.
Report: Swindon Town 2 Gillingham 0
But the final score at the County Ground was a 2-0 win for Swindon as the home side scored from their only two on-target efforts of the match.
It again highlighted why Ainsworth is so keen to do some business in the transfer window this month.
The frustrated Gills boss said: “We’ve become this team that out-stats the opposition apart from the stat that matters, and that’s the goals.
“I’d take the goals over anything at the moment, we want to win so bad.
“We had the better of the first half, without a doubt, and then in the second half we’ve created so many chances and how we haven’t scored, but they took their moments.
“This is what I keep saying, you have to take your moments.”
Swindon scored from headers inside the Gills boss, their first with an hour gone and their second in stoppage-time.
Gillingham missed some good chances and the home keeper was also in top form.
Ainsworth said: “Sloppy defending, definitely, but they took their moments because they had a couple of sloppy incidents, and we don’t take our moments, and that’s the story and that’s been the story here for a few years and that’s what I’m trying to address.
“With the window coming up, I’m hoping to be able to get some new faces in and shake it up a little bit, but the players out there were good enough, they’re good enough to win the game.
“A 2-0 defeat doesn’t tell the whole story, but it tells a story enough that says we have to start taking our chances otherwise we’re just going to sink into a mediocre season with nothing to play for and I don’t want that.”
The Gills are starting 2026 sitting 16th in the League 2 table – seven points adrift of the play-offs. They were top in September but a run of just one win in their last 15 games has seen them sink down the table.
Ainsworth’s team aren’t short of effort – but the goals are missing.
He said: “It’s a given now, they’re full-blooded and everything else. They are a good bunch of lads, they’ve given everything and we’re so together.
“No one will get through us, we’re that way, but the fans were brilliant again, absolutely brilliant and I feel for them.
“Obviously, they have a semi-rivalry with Swindon, and they came over in their numbers and they never stop singing, even at 1-0 down they kept going and 2-0 down they kept going, thank you.
“Just very frustrating that we conceded two, it should be 0-0. It doesn’t feel like a 2-0 defeat but it is because they’ve put their chances away and we didn’t.
“I thought there were some good performances, Josh Andrews again was an absolute pain for the defenders, Armani Little just ran his socks off.
“There’s a lot to take from the game but I can pick two moments out and go, ‘How have they got a free header in our six-yard box? We never get that.
“Then also, have they scored an easy goal on the counter in the second half? It beggar’s belief at times.”
“I changed the team up, five changes, and I thought the energy was there, definitely first-half without a doubt but we get nothing out of the game. It’s a tough one to take but we have to dust ourselves down and go again on Sunday (at Notts County).”
The Gills haven’t won a game since early November and Ainsworth knows stats count for nothing.
He said: “I’ve been through some tough spells in my career, this is a tough one, although performances have been there, it’s not like we’re just getting trounced every week.
“People will look (and see) 2-0 to Swindon at home and think, ‘well Swindon must have been good.’ Watch the game, they weren’t.
“We out-stated them shots, shots on target, final third entries, all that sort of stuff, but goals is the stat that counts.
“You can have all the passes, you can have all the possession, you can have all the shots, if you haven’t had all the goals, then it’s tough, we need to start having all the goals.”
